This week’s book club posting is about the key topics in chapter one. Chapter one is all about how to build the foundation for reading success and how to use pre-reading strategies for assessing and building background knowledge. Using these concepts are an important tool because they are so useful in the beginning of a unit, or the beginning of the year to see at what stage is each student at. A strategy that the book says is beneficial is one that has been used to me quite frequently. When starting class, it is useful to ask the following question: “What do you already know or think you know about__________” I have had this done to me when I was in a history college class, my professor handed out a worksheet that had questions on it that we would learn about in her course. By doing this, she was assessing our background knowledge and was curious as to know what we knew about the topic before she taught it. Janet Allen also says that “Learning occurs when the student perceives an importance between the material being presented and his life or world.” (p 3) This sentence is one that I have been taught in each education class, since I started! When a student feels a connection between the discipline and his/her life, they become more interested in it. The majority of chapter one is dedicated to giving practical assessments. I think that all of the strategies they provide in the book are truly useful and great ideas! In our article,Embedding Apprenticeship Strategies in Subject Area Classrooms, it states that shifting from asking “what” questions to “how” questions can help them with problem-solving tasks. For example, asking “how did you figure that out?” “How did you get that idea”, etc. By asking students how they got to that conclusion, instead of what did they find out in their reading, educators are teaching their students “what the word metacognition means and how being metacognitive can help them with problem-solving tasks” (P 118) By incorporating the strategies and the word transition from what to how, will benefit the students in the classroom when pre-assessing them, or assessing them after reading.
Robert Smith said... The four-pronged system that Allen sets as the goals for “activating and building background knowledge” draw on key themes that research and anecdotes consistently reinforce as vital, necessary, and ultimately beneficial to student literacy outcomes. The particular exercise and drills that populate Chapter 1 are each designed to set the stages for further understanding. The exercises themselves have variable value depending on the teacher and the students involved but the overarching concepts that those strategies bring to life are key areas we as teachers should focus on as we prepare our students for deeper literacy involvement. Before we can begin to develop new understanding in students, we need to know what base they are building from. Accepting constructivism as a guiding principle of education underlies Pace’s mission of social justice. Without knowing what preexisting knowledge our students have, we cannot design lessons to build on those understandings. Assessing student preexisting “knowledge” also provides teachers with the opportunity to “correct” misconceptions. When teachers place their lessons within significant historical contexts they encourage students to draw connections of personal import. The creation of context can come in many forms as Allen illustrates (Documentation Web, Admit Slips, Book Passes, etc.). The diversity of exercises and literacy skills that students have to employ allows learners of different strengths to express their ideas in their own fashion. The KWL exercise (a personal favorite) is a great way to bridge what is know (K) to what students want (W) to know. Placing those ideas on paper concretizes that transition for students. Anticipating difficult concepts of vocabulary is a key skill for any teacher to have. Vocabulary-study in isolation is less valuable that when placed in context. Words are not idle concepts in space but are the roots of any subject. If students can master, or at least appreciate and understand, the vocabulary of a subject, then they can begin to fathom the higher-order integrated aspects of the subject. The final key that Allen outlines in Chapter 1 is perhaps the key to future learning: students without motivations have no intrinsic reasons to read. When students know the what they are looking for and why they are looking for it the chances of them finding those understandings are amplified. Allen astutely concludes that, “[a]ctivities done during this stage of learning will lead to higher levels of student interest and engagement, support critical thinking, help students make connections and discover patterns…When students want to learn, half the battle is won.”
Within this chapter it talks about the four broad tasks a teacher must be able to accomplish with their students in the classroom. They are assessing the knowledge base students bring into the classroom, providing students with experiences that give them a rich and memorable context for the content, anticipating difficulties, and helping students with questions they would like the answer to so they have purpose while reading. What I really liked about this chapter and the book overall is the author hits you with the problems teachers face and then gives many different remedies to these situations. As you read chapter 1 you see most of the chapter is devoted to useful strategies to add to a teacher’s arsenal in the classroom and help with the former. I particularly liked the book pass assignment. This is when you give 10 minutes in the beginning of the class to allow students to sit in groups and read articles or texts and pass them through to get a quick grasp of the content that will be discussed in class. What I thought that was so great about this particular strategy is it allowed the teacher to flow around the room to help students who are having difficulties and also it allowed the students to see different points of view or biases to the content they are learning about. This is extremely important in the field of social studies because it is we preach to our students. It is of the upmost importance to understand bias in writing. It is also a great strategy for it helps students develop their own point of views on discussions that may occur in class. The articles they read might give them a great foundation to argue their point. Lastly, sometimes when we teach we might be saying or teaching a lesson from one aspect and a student might not be able to grasp what is going on. With the book pass you are allowing students to view the material in many different, controlled texts and hopefully one of these will help the student grasp the content, in which we are teaching. The other point I noticed within this chapter I would like to mention is the part of skimming and scanning. This is a tool that is extremely hard to teach, but is vital for a student to get through the workload they might have been assigned. I remember when I was younger and even now the amount of reading we have assigned, with this useful tool of skimming through texts it will free up time for students so they are not doing homework for 6 hours. They will be able to get the jist or the main ideas from the chapter, while realizing not every single word is of the upmost importance. This particular strategy we teach is a great tool throughout life, not just in the Social Studies classroom.
The first chapter in Allen's "Reading History..." was a particularly interesting and useful one! It was great to see all of the different ideas and strategies offered to improve reading in Social Studies. Caitlin mentioned the importance of creating meaningful and memorable historical contexts which was on page 3. I also thought this was incredibly important and have also had this idea preached to me one education class after another. In a subject such as Social Studies it is important to have students feel some kind of empathy towards people of the past. By having them relate to a certain person or situation in history and making the topic relevant to their life they will have a deeper interest in what they are reading. On page 4 Allen talks about how she capitalized on the Titanic phenomenon to allow her students to make personal connections to historical times, places, people, and events. When a girl was playing the role of a lower class girl, and then found out she died on the Titanic she cried. I wish we could generate this kind of interest in Social Studies with every topic we discuss!
Dennis also noted the importance of teaching our students how to skim and scan. I agree with him when he states how vital a skill it is. I think this is particularly useful when students read through the text book. They should know that bigger headings and bolded words are particularly important, as well as captions and side bars. Teachers need to teach their students these skills in order for them to succeed in a subject like Social Studies which consists of a lot of reading.
Finally I love the idea of the concept ladder. This strategy encourages students to asks themselves complex and different questions as they read. These questions encourage deeper thinking and also generate great discussion questions.
What I really took away from Chapter One was that we have to generate an interest in our students for Social Studies. As long as we can make each topic relatable and give kids the necessary tools to build reading skills then hopefully we are on our way to solving this literacy crisis!
Chapter one is about building foundations to reading and the different assessments you can do to make sure that students are track. It gives you many different aspects of being a teacher and the different stories and situations that can occur as being a teacher. It is important to create a historical context that is meaningful and can be related by the students. You want students to have some connection to the material so they can better understand what they are learning. My mentor teacher today had the students skim through the new unit that they are going to be learning and i thought of the big difference this is going to make when it comes time for the homework and classwork. I know what a big difference this makes in remembering and studying. You want students to have a motivation to learn and to keep them interested. This is one of the biggest things i have taken away from this chapter. You want them to make those connections so they have that interest in the assignments. Relatable topics are something that students want to learn about. Using something like concept ladders are something that encourage thinking and ask students to come up with questions or concepts they want answered.
In Bronwyn T. Williams “Standardized students…” was a very interesting piece. Williams first sentence states how bumper stickers have too much of simplistic positions on complex issues “Standardized Testing Produces Standardized Students.” I disagree greatly with this so-called bumper sticker. Yes not all standardized tests are bad and many teachers do use their results but these tests can not test student’s literacy. Williams is “not convinced that literacy assessment is best achieved through standardized tests” and that these tests do not score what they have learned but a comparison of a ranking of failure. As Americans we want to rank anything and everything a few examples are the top 100 movies ever made, and 50 top songs of 2010. As stated in “Standardized students…”, “If we can’t put a number on it and rank it, then what good is it?” We put value on all things materialistic or not, it is in our culture to do so. Standardized tests do not produce standardized students because there are many creative, innovative students who can turn out great work but can not score well on standardized tests and there are other students who excel in taking a standardized test. Does this mean they are not good or educated students? No! it does not. So what is it that we can do to show what students really learn in the classroom instead of a point for them to reach. “Code-Switching Pedagogies” by K. Dara Hill I was impressed that African-American families wanted their children to receive the best education they can. They realized that their children would not be able to reach this education in their urban neighborhood but in a school in a suburban. Students who transferred to these suburban schools felt out of place and sometimes tried to conform to these schools ideals. But two girls Kiki and Monet stood there ground and continued how they spoke and wrote. Their teacher Mr. Lehrer’s transformed the class to learn how to use the African American Vernacular English or the AAVE in writing. The teacher allowed students to use their home language in their essays then revise it later with the teacher in a one on one session.
Sorry I'm posting late this week. Am looking for the notetaker's summary of your discussion as I just saw a portion of it. Judging by reading here, you have more consensus than disagreement. I agree that something underlying this set of startegies is building connections but for what? How can you relate that to your understanding of Backwards Design? How can you also make connections between the chapter you read for book club and the other readings for the week. Jesus writes about the other readings - how are you connecting the code-switching piece, for example to what you read about here in this book of tools? I wonder how providing students the tools is helping them to master necessary codes that may feel unfamiliar in school, for example? I really appreciate how Caitlin makes the leap of trying to build those connections across readings and I appreciate how many of you build on what others say. But I would caution you, as well, to build on what others say and be sure to enhance, add, and/or challenge those statements if necessary to elaborate and extend the online and (hopefully) in person discussion more. Overall, good work.
Sorry I'm posting late this week. Am looking for the notetaker's summary of your discussion as I just saw a portion of it. Judging by reading here, you have more consensus than disagreement. I agree that something underlying this set of startegies is building connections but for what? How can you relate that to your understanding of Backwards Design? How can you also make connections between the chapter you read for book club and the other readings for the week. Jesus writes about the other readings - how are you connecting the code-switching piece, for example to what you read about here in this book of tools? I wonder how providing students the tools is helping them to master necessary codes that may feel unfamiliar in school, for example? I really appreciate how Caitlin makes the leap of trying to build those connections across readings and I appreciate how many of you build on what others say. But I would caution you, as well, to build on what others say and be sure to enhance, add, and/or challenge those statements if necessary to elaborate and extend the online and (hopefully) in person discussion more. Overall, good work.
Book Club 3 Notes Common themes that each of us raised were divided between formal and informal strategies for assessing students’ prior knowledge. Informal strategies were, in general, looked upon as lacking quanta to count and therefore unworthy of our discussion. Formal strategies were shared among the group and several favorites emerged. Interestingly, and also perhaps fittingly for the herd of cats that is a pod aspiring Social Studies teachers, most of the favorite strategies that one member nominated were at the same time criticized by a peer or peers as unwieldy or unfit for their application. How do Prior Assessments motivate student learning? Jessica had an excellent point here in the discussion which resonated with me: when students are asked about what they want to learn about a period of time, they feel that the teacher teaches TO THEM and not FROM THE MATERIAL. That change in focus, we all felt, would lead to a higher level, and a higher quality, of student involvement. Another group favorite was asking students to write questions (and answers) about a subject and then have the teacher incorporate selected questions into actual at-risk tests. This type of accountability was seen by many as a way for students to have their ideas be heard and therefore respected. Skimming and scanning was also a strategy that most felt was valuable for the students, applicable in our classrooms, and capable of being implemented in inclusion classrooms. Some strategies we found to be either too unwieldy, too unfocused, or of too little value included the Book Pass, the Story Impression, and the Admit Slip. Tina noted that she saw more skill development in Middle Schools and more content-focus in High Schools. We, as High School practitioners, need to be conscious and cautious about that gap and make sure that find a proper balance. On balance, our group was a fan of old-school literacy building activities and cautious about untried gambits. A classic role play like letter writing as a character to a particular audience was seen as a great chance to develop and expand a student’s relationship to history. They factor for this strategy or any other, though, is that it must have an underlying aspect to is that makes students “Do history” and not just indulge in the latest unproven fad.
This week’s book club posting is about the key topics in chapter one. Chapter one is all about how to build the foundation for reading success and how to use pre-reading strategies for assessing and building background knowledge. Using these concepts are an important tool because they are so useful in the beginning of a unit, or the beginning of the year to see at what stage is each student at. A strategy that the book says is beneficial is one that has been used to me quite frequently. When starting class, it is useful to ask the following question: “What do you already know or think you know about__________” I have had this done to me when I was in a history college class, my professor handed out a worksheet that had questions on it that we would learn about in her course. By doing this, she was assessing our background knowledge and was curious as to know what we knew about the topic before she taught it. Janet Allen also says that “Learning occurs when the student perceives an importance between the material being presented and his life or world.” (p 3) This sentence is one that I have been taught in each education class, since I started! When a student feels a connection between the discipline and his/her life, they become more interested in it.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of chapter one is dedicated to giving practical assessments. I think that all of the strategies they provide in the book are truly useful and great ideas! In our article,Embedding Apprenticeship Strategies in Subject Area Classrooms, it states that shifting from asking “what” questions to “how” questions can help them with problem-solving tasks. For example, asking “how did you figure that out?” “How did you get that idea”, etc. By asking students how they got to that conclusion, instead of what did they find out in their reading, educators are teaching their students “what the word metacognition means and how being metacognitive can help them with problem-solving tasks” (P 118) By incorporating the strategies and the word transition from what to how, will benefit the students in the classroom when pre-assessing them, or assessing them after reading.
Robert Smith said...
ReplyDeleteThe four-pronged system that Allen sets as the goals for “activating and building background knowledge” draw on key themes that research and anecdotes consistently reinforce as vital, necessary, and ultimately beneficial to student literacy outcomes. The particular exercise and drills that populate Chapter 1 are each designed to set the stages for further understanding. The exercises themselves have variable value depending on the teacher and the students involved but the overarching concepts that those strategies bring to life are key areas we as teachers should focus on as we prepare our students for deeper literacy involvement.
Before we can begin to develop new understanding in students, we need to know what base they are building from. Accepting constructivism as a guiding principle of education underlies Pace’s mission of social justice. Without knowing what preexisting knowledge our students have, we cannot design lessons to build on those understandings. Assessing student preexisting “knowledge” also provides teachers with the opportunity to “correct” misconceptions.
When teachers place their lessons within significant historical contexts they encourage students to draw connections of personal import. The creation of context can come in many forms as Allen illustrates (Documentation Web, Admit Slips, Book Passes, etc.). The diversity of exercises and literacy skills that students have to employ allows learners of different strengths to express their ideas in their own fashion. The KWL exercise (a personal favorite) is a great way to bridge what is know (K) to what students want (W) to know. Placing those ideas on paper concretizes that transition for students.
Anticipating difficult concepts of vocabulary is a key skill for any teacher to have. Vocabulary-study in isolation is less valuable that when placed in context. Words are not idle concepts in space but are the roots of any subject. If students can master, or at least appreciate and understand, the vocabulary of a subject, then they can begin to fathom the higher-order integrated aspects of the subject.
The final key that Allen outlines in Chapter 1 is perhaps the key to future learning: students without motivations have no intrinsic reasons to read. When students know the what they are looking for and why they are looking for it the chances of them finding those understandings are amplified. Allen astutely concludes that, “[a]ctivities done during this stage of learning will lead to higher levels of student interest and engagement, support critical thinking, help students make connections and discover patterns…When students want to learn, half the battle is won.”
Within this chapter it talks about the four broad tasks a teacher must be able to accomplish with their students in the classroom. They are assessing the knowledge base students bring into the classroom, providing students with experiences that give them a rich and memorable context for the content, anticipating difficulties, and helping students with questions they would like the answer to so they have purpose while reading. What I really liked about this chapter and the book overall is the author hits you with the problems teachers face and then gives many different remedies to these situations. As you read chapter 1 you see most of the chapter is devoted to useful strategies to add to a teacher’s arsenal in the classroom and help with the former. I particularly liked the book pass assignment. This is when you give 10 minutes in the beginning of the class to allow students to sit in groups and read articles or texts and pass them through to get a quick grasp of the content that will be discussed in class. What I thought that was so great about this particular strategy is it allowed the teacher to flow around the room to help students who are having difficulties and also it allowed the students to see different points of view or biases to the content they are learning about. This is extremely important in the field of social studies because it is we preach to our students. It is of the upmost importance to understand bias in writing. It is also a great strategy for it helps students develop their own point of views on discussions that may occur in class. The articles they read might give them a great foundation to argue their point. Lastly, sometimes when we teach we might be saying or teaching a lesson from one aspect and a student might not be able to grasp what is going on. With the book pass you are allowing students to view the material in many different, controlled texts and hopefully one of these will help the student grasp the content, in which we are teaching.
ReplyDeleteThe other point I noticed within this chapter I would like to mention is the part of skimming and scanning. This is a tool that is extremely hard to teach, but is vital for a student to get through the workload they might have been assigned. I remember when I was younger and even now the amount of reading we have assigned, with this useful tool of skimming through texts it will free up time for students so they are not doing homework for 6 hours. They will be able to get the jist or the main ideas from the chapter, while realizing not every single word is of the upmost importance. This particular strategy we teach is a great tool throughout life, not just in the Social Studies classroom.
The first chapter in Allen's "Reading History..." was a particularly interesting and useful one! It was great to see all of the different ideas and strategies offered to improve reading in Social Studies. Caitlin mentioned the importance of creating meaningful and memorable historical contexts which was on page 3. I also thought this was incredibly important and have also had this idea preached to me one education class after another. In a subject such as Social Studies it is important to have students feel some kind of empathy towards people of the past. By having them relate to a certain person or situation in history and making the topic relevant to their life they will have a deeper interest in what they are reading. On page 4 Allen talks about how she capitalized on the Titanic phenomenon to allow her students to make personal connections to historical times, places, people, and events. When a girl was playing the role of a lower class girl, and then found out she died on the Titanic she cried. I wish we could generate this kind of interest in Social Studies with every topic we discuss!
ReplyDeleteDennis also noted the importance of teaching our students how to skim and scan. I agree with him when he states how vital a skill it is. I think this is particularly useful when students read through the text book. They should know that bigger headings and bolded words are particularly important, as well as captions and side bars. Teachers need to teach their students these skills in order for them to succeed in a subject like Social Studies which consists of a lot of reading.
Finally I love the idea of the concept ladder. This strategy encourages students to asks themselves complex and different questions as they read. These questions encourage deeper thinking and also generate great discussion questions.
What I really took away from Chapter One was that we have to generate an interest in our students for Social Studies. As long as we can make each topic relatable and give kids the necessary tools to build reading skills then hopefully we are on our way to solving this literacy crisis!
Chapter one is about building foundations to reading and the different assessments you can do to make sure that students are track. It gives you many different aspects of being a teacher and the different stories and situations that can occur as being a teacher. It is important to create a historical context that is meaningful and can be related by the students. You want students to have some connection to the material so they can better understand what they are learning.
ReplyDeleteMy mentor teacher today had the students skim through the new unit that they are going to be learning and i thought of the big difference this is going to make when it comes time for the homework and classwork. I know what a big difference this makes in remembering and studying.
You want students to have a motivation to learn and to keep them interested. This is one of the biggest things i have taken away from this chapter. You want them to make those connections so they have that interest in the assignments. Relatable topics are something that students want to learn about. Using something like concept ladders are something that encourage thinking and ask students to come up with questions or concepts they want answered.
In Bronwyn T. Williams “Standardized students…” was a very interesting piece. Williams first sentence states how bumper stickers have too much of simplistic positions on complex issues “Standardized Testing Produces Standardized Students.” I disagree greatly with this so-called bumper sticker. Yes not all standardized tests are bad and many teachers do use their results but these tests can not test student’s literacy. Williams is “not convinced that literacy assessment is best achieved through standardized tests” and that these tests do not score what they have learned but a comparison of a ranking of failure. As Americans we want to rank anything and everything a few examples are the top 100 movies ever made, and 50 top songs of 2010. As stated in “Standardized students…”, “If we can’t put a number on it and rank it, then what good is it?” We put value on all things materialistic or not, it is in our culture to do so. Standardized tests do not produce standardized students because there are many creative, innovative students who can turn out great work but can not score well on standardized tests and there are other students who excel in taking a standardized test. Does this mean they are not good or educated students? No! it does not. So what is it that we can do to show what students really learn in the classroom instead of a point for them to reach.
ReplyDelete“Code-Switching Pedagogies” by K. Dara Hill I was impressed that African-American families wanted their children to receive the best education they can. They realized that their children would not be able to reach this education in their urban neighborhood but in a school in a suburban. Students who transferred to these suburban schools felt out of place and sometimes tried to conform to these schools ideals. But two girls Kiki and Monet stood there ground and continued how they spoke and wrote. Their teacher Mr. Lehrer’s transformed the class to learn how to use the African American Vernacular English or the AAVE in writing. The teacher allowed students to use their home language in their essays then revise it later with the teacher in a one on one session.
Sorry I'm posting late this week. Am looking for the notetaker's summary of your discussion as I just saw a portion of it. Judging by reading here, you have more consensus than disagreement. I agree that something underlying this set of startegies is building connections but for what? How can you relate that to your understanding of Backwards Design? How can you also make connections between the chapter you read for book club and the other readings for the week. Jesus writes about the other readings - how are you connecting the code-switching piece, for example to what you read about here in this book of tools? I wonder how providing students the tools is helping them to master necessary codes that may feel unfamiliar in school, for example? I really appreciate how Caitlin makes the leap of trying to build those connections across readings and I appreciate how many of you build on what others say. But I would caution you, as well, to build on what others say and be sure to enhance, add, and/or challenge those statements if necessary to elaborate and extend the online and (hopefully) in person discussion more. Overall, good work.
ReplyDeleteSorry I'm posting late this week. Am looking for the notetaker's summary of your discussion as I just saw a portion of it. Judging by reading here, you have more consensus than disagreement. I agree that something underlying this set of startegies is building connections but for what? How can you relate that to your understanding of Backwards Design? How can you also make connections between the chapter you read for book club and the other readings for the week. Jesus writes about the other readings - how are you connecting the code-switching piece, for example to what you read about here in this book of tools? I wonder how providing students the tools is helping them to master necessary codes that may feel unfamiliar in school, for example? I really appreciate how Caitlin makes the leap of trying to build those connections across readings and I appreciate how many of you build on what others say. But I would caution you, as well, to build on what others say and be sure to enhance, add, and/or challenge those statements if necessary to elaborate and extend the online and (hopefully) in person discussion more. Overall, good work.
ReplyDeleteBook Club 3 Notes
ReplyDeleteCommon themes that each of us raised were divided between formal and informal strategies for assessing students’ prior knowledge.
Informal strategies were, in general, looked upon as lacking quanta to count and therefore unworthy of our discussion. Formal strategies were shared among the group and several favorites emerged.
Interestingly, and also perhaps fittingly for the herd of cats that is a pod aspiring Social Studies teachers, most of the favorite strategies that one member nominated were at the same time criticized by a peer or peers as unwieldy or unfit for their application.
How do Prior Assessments motivate student learning?
Jessica had an excellent point here in the discussion which resonated with me: when students are asked about what they want to learn about a period of time, they feel that the teacher teaches TO THEM and not FROM THE MATERIAL. That change in focus, we all felt, would lead to a higher level, and a higher quality, of student involvement.
Another group favorite was asking students to write questions (and answers) about a subject and then have the teacher incorporate selected questions into actual at-risk tests. This type of accountability was seen by many as a way for students to have their ideas be heard and therefore respected.
Skimming and scanning was also a strategy that most felt was valuable for the students, applicable in our classrooms, and capable of being implemented in inclusion classrooms.
Some strategies we found to be either too unwieldy, too unfocused, or of too little value included the Book Pass, the Story Impression, and the Admit Slip.
Tina noted that she saw more skill development in Middle Schools and more content-focus in High Schools. We, as High School practitioners, need to be conscious and cautious about that gap and make sure that find a proper balance.
On balance, our group was a fan of old-school literacy building activities and cautious about untried gambits. A classic role play like letter writing as a character to a particular audience was seen as a great chance to develop and expand a student’s relationship to history. They factor for this strategy or any other, though, is that it must have an underlying aspect to is that makes students “Do history” and not just indulge in the latest unproven fad.